Friday, 23 September 2016

President Bashar Assad interviewed by AP

September
22, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "SANA" -
Damascus, SANA, President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to
Associated Press published Thursday, following is the full text:

Journalist:
President Assad, thank you very much for this opportunity to be
interviewed by the Associated Press.

President
Assad: You are most welcome in Syria.

Question
1: I will start by talking about the ceasefire in Syria. Russia, the
US, and several countries say a ceasefire could be revived despite
the recent violence and the recrimination. Do you agree, and are you
prepared to try again?

President
Assad: We announced that we are ready to be committed to any halt of
operations, or if you want to call it ceasefire, but it’s not about
Syria or Russia; it’s about the United States and the terrorist
groups that have been affiliated to ISIS and al-Nusra and Al Qaeda,
and to the United States and to Turkey and to Saudi Arabia. They
announced publicly that they are not committed, and this is not the
first attempt to have a halt of operations in Syria. The first
attempt was in last February, and didn’t work, I think, because of
the United States, and I believe that the United States is not
genuine regarding having a cessation of violence in Syria.

Question
2: Do you believe there could ever be a joint US-Russian military
partnership against the militants, as outlined in the deal?

President
Assad: Again, practically, yes, but in reality, no, because the
United States doesn’t have the will to work against al-Nusra or
even ISIS, because they believe that this is a card they can use for
their own agenda. If they attack al-Nusra or ISIS, they will lose a
very important card regarding the situation in Syria. So, I don’t
believe the United States will be ready to join Russia in fighting
terrorists in Syria.

Question
3: This week, the US has said the coalition attack on Syrian troops
was an accident. Do you accept that explanation?

President
Assad: No, no. It’s not, because it wasn’t an accident by one
airplane for once, let’s say. It was four airplanes that kept
attacking the position of the Syrian troops for nearly one hour, or a
little bit more than one hour. You don’t commit a mistake for more
than one hour. This is first. Second, they weren’t attacking a
building in a quartier; they were attacking a huge place constituted
of many hills, and there was not terrorist adjacent to the Syrian
troops there. At the same time, the ISIS troops or the ISIS militants
attacked right away after the American strike. How could they know
that the Americans are going to attack that position in order to
gather their militants to attack right away and to capture it one
hour after the strike? So it was definitely intentional, not
unintentional as they claimed.

Question
4: Did Syria or Russia launch the attack on the Red Crescent convoy
this week, and should Moscow be held responsible, as the White House
has said?

President
Assad: No, first of all, there have been tens, maybe, of convoys from
different organizations around the world, coming to different areas
in Syria for the last few years. It has never happened before, so why
to happen now, either by the Russians or the Syrians? No, it’s a
claim. And regarding the claim of the White House yesterday, accusing
either the Syrians or the Russians. In that regard, I would say
whatever the American officials said about the conflicts in Syria in
general has no credibility. Whatever they say, it’s just lies and,
let’s say, bubbles, has no foundation on the ground.

Question
5: So what happened to the convoy? Who should be held responsible?

President
Assad: Those convoys were in the area of the militants, the area
under the control of the terrorists. That’s what they should accuse
first: the people or the militants, the terrorists who are
responsible for the security of this convoy. So, we don’t have any
idea about what happened. The only thing that we saw was a video of a
burnt car, destroyed trucks, nothing else.

Question
6: Several eyewitnesses have told AP that 20 missiles were launched
against the convoy. There is footage of torn bodies. This does not
seem as though it would be anything but an attack from the air.
Eyewitnesses are also talking about barrel bombs, and as you are
aware, your administration has been accused of using barrel bombs in
some circumstances. You still think this was an attack from the
ground by rebels?

President
Assad: Yeah, first of all, even the United Nations said that there
were no airstrikes against that convoy. That was yesterday. Second,
at the same time of that event, the terrorists were attacking the
Syrian troops by missiles. They launched missile attacks, we didn’t
respond. Third, you cannot talk about eyewitnesses for such judgment
or accusation. What are the credibility of those eyewitnesses, who
are they? We don’t know.

Question
7: We have eyewitnesses that were relatives, we have the White
Helmets, we have many people saying that they witnessed helicopters
in the air. Now, only the Syrians and the Russians have helicopters.
Are you saying this is just invented?

President
Assad: Those witnesses only appear when there’s an accusation
against the Syrian Army or the Russian, but when the terrorists
commit a crime or massacre or anything, you don’t see any
witnesses, and you don’t hear about those White Helmets. So, what a
coincidence. No, actually, we don’t have any interest in doing so
for one reason: because if we attack any convoy that’s going to the
civilians, we are working for the interest of the terrorists, that
will play into their hands directly, in that regard we are pushing
the civilians toward the terrorists, we put them in their laps, and
we are providing the terrorists with a good incubator, something we
wouldn’t do. This is first. Second, we are, as a government, as
officials, we are committed morally toward the Syrian people,
morally, constitutionally, and legally, to help them in every aspect
to have the basic needs for their livelihood.

Question
8: Your administration has denied the use of chemical weapons, of
barrel bombs, despite testimony and video and the results of a UN
investigation. We also are hearing similar denials about airstrikes
on civilians and medical workers. Can this all be false allegations
by your opponents?

President
Assad: First of all, the first incident of gas use in Syria was in
Aleppo about more than three years ago, and we were the ones who
invited the United Nations to send a delegation for investigations
about the use of chemical weapons, and the United States objected and
opposed that action for one reason; because if there’s
investigations, they’re going to discover that the terrorists used
gas, not the Syrian Army. In that regard, in that case, the United
States won’t be able to accuse Syria. That’s why they were
opposing that delegation. In every incident, we asked the United
Nations to send a delegation, and we are still insisting on that
position, that they have to send delegations to make investigation,
but the United States is opposing. So, actually, if we’ve been
using that, we wouldn’t ask for investigation.

Question
9: To the international community, it seems as though none of the
charges or accusations stick, that everything is denied, everything
here is ok, by your administration. Do you not feel that that
undermines the credibility? In other instances, the Americans for
example admitted the attack on the Syrian military was a mistake.
Now, you don’t accept that, but from the Syrian administration, all
the international community hears is denial.

President
Assad: Regarding which issue?

Question
10: Regarding the accusations of violations of human rights, of
barrel bombs…

President
Assad: Look, if you want to talk about mistakes, every country has
mistakes, every government has mistakes, every person has mistakes.
When you have a war, you have more mistakes. That’s the natural
thing. But the accusations have no foundation regarding Syria. When
they talk about barrel bombs, what are barrel bombs?

It’s
just a title they use in order to show something which is very evil
that could kill people indiscriminately, and as I said, because in
the media “when it bleeds, it leads.” They don’t talk about
bombs; they call it barrel bombs. A bomb is a bomb, what’s the
difference between different kinds of bombs? All bombs are to kill,
but it’s about how to use it. When you use an armament, you use it
to defend the civilians. You kill terrorists in order to defend
civilians. That’s the natural role of any army in the world. When
you have terrorists, you don’t throw at them balloons or you don’t
use rubber sticks, for example. You have to use armaments. So, it’s
not about what the kind of armament, it’s about how to use it, and
they want to use it that time to accuse the Syrian Army of killing
civilians. We don’t kill civilians, because we don’t have the
moral incentive, we don’t have the interest to kill civilians. It’s
our people, who support us. If you want to kill the Syrian people,
who’s going to support us as a government, as officials? No one.
So, in reality, you cannot withstand for five years and more against
all those countries, the West, and the Gulf states, the petrodollars,
and all this propaganda, the strongest media corporations around the
world, if you don’t have the support of your own people. That’s
against the reality. So, no, we don’t use it. I wouldn’t say that
we don’t have mistakes. Again, that many mistakes that have been
committed by individuals, but there’s a difference between a
mistake or even a crime that’s been committed by an individual, and
between a policy of crime that’s been implemented or adopted by a
government. We don’t have such a policy.

Question
11: And yet the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who are fleeing the
country, many drowning on the way, many of them say they are fleeing
your forces. What exactly are they fleeing if this campaign doesn’t
exist, if this campaign of violence, indiscriminate against them…?

President
Assad: You have to look at the reality in Syria. Whenever we liberate
any city or village from the terrorists, the civilians will go back
to the city, while they flee that city when the terrorists attack
that area, the opposite. So, they flee, first of all, the war itself;
they flee the area under the control of the terrorists, they flee the
difficult situation because of the embargo by the West on Syria. So,
many people, they flee not the war itself, but the consequences of
the war, because they want to live, they want to have the basic needs
for their livelihood, they don’t have it. They have to flee these
circumstances, not necessarily the security situation itself. So, you
have different reasons for the people or the refugees to leave Syria.
Many many of them supported the government in the recent elections,
the presidential elections, in different countries. So, that’s not
true that they left Syria because of the government, and those
accusations mean that the government is killing the people, while the
terrorists, mainly Al Qaeda and al-Nusra and other Al
Qaeda-affiliated organizations or groups protected the civilians. Is
that the accusation? No-one can believe it, actually.

Question
12: Let’s turn our attention to the people that can’t flee, the
people who are in besieged cities around Syria. For example, Aleppo.
To go back to the ceasefire agreement, aid was supposed to get into
the city, but you did not hold up your end of the agreement. Why was
that, and how can you really justify withholding aid to cities?

President
Assad: Again, if we talk about the last few years, many aid convoys
came to different cities, so why does the Syrian government prevent a
convoy from coming to Aleppo for example, while allowing the others
to reach other areas? This is contradiction, you cannot explain it,
it’s not palatable. This is first. Second, if you look at the
others areas under the control of the terrorists, we’re still
sending vaccines from the Syrian government’s budget, we’re still
sending salaries to the employees from the Syrian government’s
budget. So, how can we do this and at the same time push the people
toward starvation in other areas? More importantly, the terrorists
who left liberated areas under what you call reconciliation or
certain agreements in different areas, they left to fight with other
terrorists in Syria while they send their families to live under the
supervision of the government. Why didn’t we put those families to
starvation? So, this is contradicting, I mean what you’re talking
about is contradicting the reality, and we don’t contradict
ourselves.

Question
13: But the world saw the reality of Aleppo. There were UN convoys of
aid that were not allowed into the city. Are you denying that that
was the case?

President
Assad: The situation has been like this for years now. If there’s
really a siege around the city of Aleppo, people would have been dead
by now. This is first. Second, more importantly, they’ve been
shelling the neighboring areas and the positions of the Syrian Army
for years, non-stop shelling of mortars and different kinds of lethal
bombs. How could they be starving while at the same time they can
have armaments? How can we prevent the food and the medical aid from
reaching that area and we cannot stop the armaments form reaching
that area, which is not logical?

Question
14: So what is your message to the people to Aleppo, who are saying
the opposite, that they are hungry, that they are suffering
malnutrition, that there are no doctors, that doctors have been
targeted and killed in airstrikes, that they are under siege and they
are dying? What is your message to them?

President
Assad: You can’t say “the people of Aleppo” because the
majority of the people of Aleppo are living in the area under the
control of the government, so you cannot talk about the people of
Aleppo. If you want to talk about some who allegedly are claiming
this, we tell them how could you still be alive? Why don’t you
have, for example, an epidemic, if you don’t have doctors? How
could you say that we attacked, they accuse Syria of attacking
hospitals, so you have hospitals and you have doctors and you have
everything. How could you have them? How could you have armaments?
That’s the question. How can you get armaments to your people, if
you claim that you have people and grassroots while you don’t have
food? They have to explain; I don’t have to explain. The reality is
telling.

Question
15: Yet, they say the opposite. They say they are surviving on
whatever they can, on meager means, and they are a city under siege.
You do not accept that Aleppo is a city under siege with people
starving and hungry?

President
Assad: Again, how can I prevent the food, and not prevent the
armament? Logically, how? If I can prevent food, I should be able to
prevent armaments. If I don’t prevent armaments, that means
everything else will pass to Aleppo.

Question
16: Have you been to Aleppo recently? Will you go to Aleppo?

President
Assad: Of course I will go.

Question
17: And how does it feel for you to see the devastation in parts of
what was known as the jewel of Syria?

President
Assad: Devastation is painful, of course, but we can rebuild our
country. We’re going to do that. Someday the war will stop. The
most painful is the devastation of the society, the killing, the
blood-shedding, something we live with every hour and every day. But
how would I think? I think when I see those pictures how would
Western officials feel when they look at this devastation and these
killing pictures and they know that their hands are stained with
their blood, that they committed the crime directly in killing those
people and destroying our civilization. That’s what I think about.

Question
18: Yet, to the outside world, it feels as though the end justifies
any means in your war on terror. Do you accept that?

President
Assad: They don’t have morals, of course. This is a Machiavellian
principle; the end justifies the means. We don’t accept it, no.
Your policy should be a mixture between your interests and how you
reach your ends, but based on values. It cannot be only the end
justifies the means, because for the criminals, ends justify the
means, for thieves, for every illegal and immoral action, the end
justifies the means. That’s exactly what you mentioned in your
question, this is the base, the foundation of the Western policy
around the world these days.

Question
19: What is your message to the Syrians who have fled the country?
Some of them didn’t make it, others did. Do you call on them to
come back, do you expect them to come back?

President
Assad: Of course. It’s a loss, it’s a great loss. The worst loss
for any country is not the infrastructure or the buildings or the
material loss; actually, it’s the human resources loss, something
we want to see coming back to Syria, and I’m sure that the majority
of those Syrians who left Syria, they will go back when the security
and when the life goes back to its normality and the minimal
requirements for livelihood will be affordable to them, they will go
back. I am not worried about this.

Question
20: Do you have any expectation of when that will happen, when Syria
will be pacified to some degree that they can come back?

President
Assad: If we look at it according to the internal Syrian factors, I
would say it’s very soon, a few months, and I’m sure about that,
I’m not exaggerating, but when you talk about it as part of a
global conflict and a regional conflict, when you have many external
factors that you don’t control, it’s going to drag on and no-one
in this world can tell you when but the countries, the governments,
the officials who support directly the terrorists. Only they know,
because they know when they’re going to stop supporting those
terrorists, and this is where the situation in Syria is going to be
solved without any real obstacles.

Question
21: So, let’s just dwell on that point for a moment. Do you believe
that within a couple of months the situation in Syria will have
dramatically changed in your favor to the point that refugees can
come back?

President
Assad: No, because I don’t believe that in a couple of months
Erdogan and the United States regime, and the Western regimes in
general, and of course Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are going to stop the
support of the terrorists. I don’t see it in the next two months.

Question
22: So how can you really incite Syrians to come back in two months
as you said?

President
Assad: I said if there are no external factors. I said if you look at
it as an isolated case, as a Syrian case, which is theoretical, I
mean, this is where you can say that in few months you can solve it.
But now you’re talking about an arena which is part of the
international and regional arena, not isolated. So, this is why I
said no-one has the answer when will it end.

Question
23: It’s now one year since Russia got involved in the war. Before
the intervention you were losing territory and control. Did you ever
feel like you were losing the war?

President
Assad: We didn’t look at it that way, to lose the war, because
whenever you have Syrians working with the terrorists, it’s a loss.
How to lose the war, this is hypothetical question, to be frank. It’s
not about your feeling; it’s about the reality. In the war, you
lose areas, but you recapture another area. So, it is difficult to
tell whether you are losing or gaining or it was a standstill. No-one
has this answer. But definitely, after the Russian intervention and
supporting the Syrian Army, legally of course, we felt much much
better. We captured many main cities, many main positions at the
expense of the terrorists’ areas.

Question
24: Even if you were to win the war, what would be left of your
country and Syrian society? Will you have to think again about the
prospect of a partition in Syria?

President
Assad: No, we never thought about it, and the majority in Syria don’t
believe in this, and I don’t think the reality, in spite of this
savage war, has created the atmosphere for such partition. Actually,
in many areas, the social situation is much better, because when you
want to talk about partition you need to find these borders between
the social communities. You cannot have partition only on political
bases or geographic bases. It should be social first of all when the
communities do not live with each other. As a result of the war, many
Syrians understand that the only way to protect your country is to
live with each other with integration, not only in coexistence, which
is actually more precise to call cohabitation, when people interact
and integrate with each other on daily basis in every detail. So, I
think in this regard I am more assured that Syria will be more
unified. So, the only problem now that we face is not the partition,
but terrorism.

Question
25: And yet you are not seen as a unifying force in Syria; people
think that the society is torn apart. Just to use one example, on a
personal level, you trained as a doctor and yet your administration
stands accused of targeting medical and rescue workers as they race
to save lives. How do you make peace with this?

And
is this a society that, after suffering such consequences, can really
just forget the past and move on?

President
Assad: I cannot answer that question while it’s filled with
misinformation. Let us correct it first. We don’t attack any
hospital. Again, as I said, this is against our interests. If you put
aside the morals, that we do not do it morally, if I put it aside, I
am talking about now, let’s say, the ends justify the means, if I
want to use it, we don’t have interest. This is how we can help the
terrorists if we attack hospitals, schools, and things like this. Of
course, whenever you have a war, the civilians and the innocents will
pay the price. That’s in any war, any war is a bad war. There is no
good war. In any war, people will pay the price, but I’m talking
about the policy of the government, of the army; we don’t attack
any hospital. We don’t have any interest in attacking hospitals.
So, what is the other part of the question? Sorry, to remind me.

Question
26: That’s ok, that fits into the general question, but I would
like to follow up with: others say the opposite, including medical
workers and including the Syrian White Helmets. If you value their
work, racing to the scene of whatever it may, to try and save lives,
does that mean you would support the recent nomination of the White
Helmets for a Nobel Peace Prize?

President
Assad: It is not about the White Helmets, whether they are credible
or not, because some organizations are politicized, but they use
different humanitarian masks and umbrellas just to implement certain
agenda. But, generally if you want to talk about the humanitarian
support, how can I attack hospitals while I am sending vaccines, for
example? Just explain it. You tell me two different things, two
contradicting things; one that I am talking about is reality, because
everybody knows that we are sending vaccines, the other one is that
we are attacking hospitals. They do not match.

Question
27: Would you support them for a Nobel Peace Prize?

President
Assad: Who?

Question
28: The White Helmets.

President
Assad: What did they achieve in Syria? And how un-politicized is the
Nobel Prize? That’s the other question. So, if I get an answer to
these two questions, I can answer you. But I would only give a prize
to whoever works for the peace in Syria, first of all by stopping the
terrorists from flowing towards Syria, only.

Question
29: My last question: The US election is now just a few weeks away.
How do you expect that a Clinton or Trump presidency would differ in
terms of US policy towards Syria, and specifically towards you?

President
Assad: The problem with every American candidate regarding the
presidency, I am not talking only about this campaign or elections,
but generally, that they say something during the campaign and they
do the opposite after the campaign. As we see now the American
officials, they say something in the morning and they do the opposite
in the evening. So, you cannot judge those people according to what
they say. You cannot take them at their words, to be frank. We don’t
listen to their statements, we don’t care about it, we don’t
believe it. We have to wait till they become presidents, we have to
watch their policy and their actions and their behaviors. We do not
have a lot of expectations, we never had. We have hopes that we can
see rational American presidents; fair, obey the international law,
deal with other countries according to mutual respect, parity, etc.,
but we all know that this is only wishful thinking and fantasy.